1. Field of Use
This invention relates generally to programmable apparatus for making finished wire harnesses or sub-assemblies therefor.
In particular, it relates to such apparatus which is operable to provide a predetermined sequence of wire segments which differ in various respects (i.e., length, gauge, color), to attach terminals to either or both ends of selected segments, to attach a single terminal to the ends of two or more selected segments, and to insert the ends of selected segments into an insulated apertured terminal block.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wire harnesses used in electrical systems of automobiles and other vehicles, domestic appliances, electronic equipment or the like, are custom-designed to suit particular needs and assume a wide variety of forms. Some merely comprise an assemblage of wire segments, each of desired length, gauge or color, with the segment ends being bare or provided with suitable terminals. Others go further and require two or more selected wire segments to be attached to a single terminal (called "doubling") or require some or all of the segment ends (unterminated or terminated and single or doubled) to be inserted into apertures in a plastic insulated terminal block or housing.
Heretofore, batches of the various sub-assemblies were manufactured and then sorted and assembled into finished harnesses. Sub-assembly manufacture was usually carried out on apparatus able to process only one size of wire or cable during a given production run, although in some instances different types of terminals could be attached. Special assembly techniques, such as doubling or terminal block attachment, were carried out as separate steps either manually or on special machines which needed to be fed manually because of the complexity of the harness. In one type of prior art system doubling was accomplished by feeding stripped wire segments from two separate wire cutting and stripping, machines which were arranged end-to-end into a common terminal attachment machine which crimped a single terminal to the stripped ends of a pair of wire segments being received from the two wire cutting and stripping machines. Needless to say, such prior art production techniques are very time-consuming and costly because they involve numerous sequential repetitive low volume slow production steps, frequent re-setting or re-adjustment of available production machines to accommodate production runs of different sizes of wire and terminals or availability of extra machines, and much manual labor. However, although some programmable prior art wire processing machinery is available which is especially well-suited for high-speed, high-volume production of pre-fabricated sub-assemblies, it is usually able to handle only one type of wire at a time in each production run, although different segment lengths and types of termination can be accomplished.